And X11 had DGA(2) which also gave you direct access to vid mem. Unlike DDraw though, it's uptake wasn't as good.. but thankfully so, since drivers can just not provide it anymore and instead provide "cleaner" Xlib and OpenGL graphics implementations. Windows has to continue providing DDraw or else it'll break a bunch of apps (though to be honest, I'd wager DDraw is emulated with Direct3D these days anyway..).randy wrote:But Windows also has had DirectDraw for 10+ years, which gives you direct access to the video memory and still plays nice with the windowing system, so having to use GDI isn't an issue.Chris wrote:GDI on Windows
I made the comparison because Xlib graphics are more or less equivilant to GDI, both in speed and functionality. DDraw I'd liken to DGA2, and while X11 eventually deprecated DGA2 and is no longer offering it (instead preferring OpenGL), Windows continues to offer DDraw (but recommends Direct3D). It's just SDL isn't all that great and doesn't accelerate its framebuffer operations with OpenGL.